Everything You Need To Know About Muscle Soreness

Now I'm sharing what I know with you fitness , nutrition and all the deeper stuff to help you discover your strongest body . Hello , hello , welcome back , betsy . Here I have a little bit of a sort of deep , sore throat voice . Today At least it sounds like it to me . I wonder what it'll sound like when I'm recording . It has gotten progressively better .

So I just got back from California and the entire time I was there I didn't feel sick . I even didn't feel like my throat really hurt . I just had this sore throat voice . I think it suits me . I think that the little deeper tone is a cool vibe , but I am also glad it's going away .

As I said , I just got back from California , had a great trip , got to go to see my family , got to see friends , got to try out different gyms . So I went to the Gold's Gym in Venice Beach , which is called the Mecca of Bodybuilding . So it's the gym that Arnold Schwarzenegger made famous and it's kind of .

It's just like a cool little bodybuilding world in there where everybody is obsessed with exercise , and that was kind of a fun thing to do .

I tried out another beautiful health club in Long Beach and it was just stunning , and , as a fitness nerd , it was very exciting to go and use equipment that I haven't used and get to experience different spaces , and there's something just so cool about just watching people work out all over the world . So it's now a mission .

Like a lot of times I'll use the hotel gym when I go places , but I'm considering that I'll probably just drop into different gyms when when I travel . So that was a lot of fun and I'm recovering , I'm feeling mildly awake , so when better than to record a podcast ?

So today we're talking about muscle soreness and I'm going to title the episode Everything you Need to Know About Muscle Soreness . It's not everything there is about muscle soreness , but we're talking about the things that you need to know .

So I'm going to talk about things that are on average fitness enthusiasts , someone who's working out regularly , you know , likely not a professional athlete , nor a scientist who's studying it . So we're going to talk about things with enough detail that gives you some practical understanding .

Oh , before I forget , they are working on my fence at my house and so I can hear like a lot of banging . I don't know if you'll be able to hear it , but I wanted to get this episode out , so hopefully it doesn't interrupt us and it just might get my concentration sometimes . Oh also , justin Timberlake is here .

I posted a video , a reel , the other day of him working out , and that's just . Those are my two favorite things Justin Timberlake and working out . Oh yes , and my children and my husband . Just kidding . So let's get into the muscle soreness . I'm sorry I got distracted again by this cut out . Okay , we're going to talk about what muscle soreness is .

So these are the , these are this is how we're going to go through it . We're going to talk about what it is , why do we experience it , what it's telling us and then what to do about it . And I think those are really practical sort of delineations , because we do want to know about it .

We want to know why and maybe the why there's an absence of it , what it's communicating , and then how are we going to manage it . And I have some things that you may have heard before and some that you may not have heard before . So muscle soreness is our body's way of communicating with us .

We are and our body's physiological kind of process for repair and immediate , immediate action on the inflammatory processes that are happening when we are training .

So resistance training in particular is is causing micro traumas in the muscle and in the tissues and that is then creating this physiological sort of cascade of responses , one of which is that muscle soreness that we feel and it is inflammatory . So inflammation is happening .

Just like when you , when something else is going wrong , the inflammation process in your body is your body's go to response for healing . Okay , what soreness is not , is it's not lactic acid buildup in the body ? This actually was a debunked . I just read this . It was debunked in the 80s , as early as the 80s .

I didn't just learn about lactic acid , I learned when we learned about it and we learned that it wasn't causing soreness all the way back in the 1980s . And that's young , if , if anybody was wondering , anybody born in the 1980s . But it's still . That myth is still passed around today .

I always say I hope trainers know that that is a myth , but the general fitness population . I'm just going to educate you now so you don't share that myth anymore . So it's not lactic acid buildup . Lactic acid that is created in our body as we are exercising is actually removed very quickly . It's removed pretty immediately . So that is not that feeling .

Lactic acid contributes , or may contribute , to that burn sensation you have while exercising , but also that's not the only thing that is kind of creating that sensation and could , could not be part of that sensation . It's an inflammatory process in the body that happens typically 12 to 72 hours after exercise . So you're not .

The soreness that we're talking about is not something that you feel immediately post workout . It's also known as delayed onset muscle soreness . So Dom's is the is what people say , the acronym that people say Dom's the abbreviation .

I guess when you are exercising and you do a hard workout , people are still pretty surprised that they don't feel sore right away , but the next morning they feel sore or that soreness gets even worse in that 48 hours to 72 hour window .

Again , that's going to depend on your body , what's happening , what the workout was , but if you're thinking about it in terms of that repair process , your body may need to work longer to repair what's happening , and so that's why you're feeling that sensation .

We could go into the little details about physiologically what's happening , but I don't necessarily think it's all that important . Know that your body is trying to repair itself and that is what you are feeling . Is muscle soreness the best indicator of a good workout ? The answer is no , so you can do a great workout and not feel sore at all .

That's a complete possibility . What I will say ? So we've gotten that I think that message has been communicated Pretty recently that soreness does not always equate to a good workout . What I will say is that I believe if you are never feeling any soreness localized in any spot , it is likely that you could be working harder , doing more . So we're probably .

We need to look at a bigger picture , the individual workout . Maybe we don't need to feel sore after , but if you've been training for six weeks , you're not seeing results and you also notice that you never feel sore after a workout , it is likely time to increase the intensity .

Now the other thing is does debilitating soreness , or even just intense soreness , mean the workout was better ? No , it could mean that you did more work . You worked harder , your body was put through more of that micro trauma your muscles , your tissues .

It could also mean that you haven't slept well , you're not properly fueling , so your nutrition isn't supporting your training or your hydration is off and it is also not supporting your training . That's an important thing to know . Those factors also influence soreness , also stress in your life , distraction , that kind of thing .

There are lots of pieces like anything , like anything on our way to our goals . It's not just these individual workouts that contribute to our overall success .

It's a lot of different competing factors , and so if we're experiencing really terrible soreness soreness that knocks us out for days at a time , soreness that never goes away we likely need to look at these other factors that are contributing .

So when we think about soreness , one of the best ways to think about soreness is as a tool for communication from our body to our brain , or our body to our decision making , or to a feedback loop for yourself . It's great information . We have to think critically about it . We have to look at all these pieces , but it's great information .

What do the different levels of soreness or styles of soreness mean for us ? So if you are so sore that you cannot move , you know it's like the first two workouts with a trainer and if you've ever had a first workout with a trainer after not working out with anybody , you will know what I'm talking about .

It is the kind of soreness where you actually need to use the handles to get yourself down to the toilet and then you are worried that you will not get back up . You are using railings , you are unable to reach overhead to get the dish out of the cabinet because you are that sore . It's fine . It's fine the first or second time as your body adjusts .

But if we're feeling that a lot , we are likely doing too much in the workout . It's your body saying whoa , whoa , whoa , whoa , whoa . You have pushed too hard . And now I'm giving you like a hard red light rather than a yellow light . I'm telling you we have done too much . If you're not sore at all , maybe you just were like feeling great that day .

You got lots of sleep , you're well fed and you crushed your workout and it was on the easier side of your workouts . But if you're feeling not sore all the time , as I said before , it's probably communicating that you could do a little bit more . We don't want to attach our level of effort and if things are working with soreness .

But we also want to use it as an indicator Because if the goal is to make changes in our body , we have to do enough to create the change , which means we have to push hard enough to create those little micro traumas . If it is so effortless the whole time , you're not creating those . I hope that makes sense .

If you are feeling after a workout you know in those 12 to 72 hours after sore in places where you know the exercises we're aiming to hit and that's a great signal . It's telling you you are doing it right . Your form is probably spot on .

If you are , if you're feeling sore in the places that are the primary muscle groups and movers of that exercise , it's good feedback for you .

If you're sore in the quote unquote wrong spots so if your low back is hurting after you were doing an entirely glute focus workout , you don't feel any soreness in your glutes it is probably communicating to you that the form was off , that your natural inclination is probably to do something that is protective or guarding , and so you weren't getting those muscles

involved . I don't use language like muscles turned off , turn on , because that's not a thing , but you might not have been accessing the muscles that you needed and then so it's just feedback .

You know you go in and you tell your trainer , or you go , if you're not working with a trainer , and you go watch the video of that exercise again and see how you may need to manipulate your own position . I tell people all the time if you're working out on your own , film yourself .

Film yourself , because then you get visual feedback for yourself if there's something that you need to change . But if you're working with a coach , they can help you to . Sometimes a coach doesn't see it If they don't know that you're not feeling it somewhere . So you may want to mention that .

And then if you're constantly sore , so if you're sore all the time , there's something that we need to change because we shouldn't be just like sore every single day . Maybe at the start of a new program you're going to be sore for a little bit , like for two weeks you're like I feel sore every day and beyond that we got to change something .

So do we need to change the program ? Do we need to take some things out less than the volume , decrease the intensity ? Do you need to work on your sleep or work on your nutrition ?

So I see this all the time , and particularly in young women who are driven and like highly capable they , but also kind of leaning toward the end of obsessive when it comes to exercise . They're doing tons of hit workouts , they're doing strength workouts , they're running and they're going to classes and they're they're just like over , they're working out too much .

There is , there is very much a way to work out too much , especially like , especially when we're doing a lot of aimless stuff .

And so if you are working out all the time and you are never feeling fully recovered , we're not giving our bodies the opportunity to refresh , replenish and regrow , which , even if you don't want to build muscle size , you do want change to happen .

And if you're in a constant state of beat up , you never recover and you never get to change , whether that's grow muscle , whether that's get stronger , whether that's change your body composition . You got to have that recovery process . So if you're constantly , constantly sore , there's probably something to that .

And for most people , if you're not overtraining so let's say you are , you want to do all those things and your body can handle it and you're that sore you're probably not fueling . Well , your body should feel nourished by food . I can't tell you how much better I recover .

With the appropriate amount of protein and the appropriate amount of total food intake , total calorie intake , I can be a beast when it comes to my next workout , because I feel so refreshed , so recovered and a lot of people are are trying to pay debts when they have a negative account in their balance . That's what you're doing .

You're like you're maxing out your credit cards and at some point they take away the credit line for you because you can't do it anymore . You got to have something in the bank and that's where getting in the appropriate amount of calories , the appropriate amount of protein , allows you to recover .

And so if you're constantly feeling sore and you feel like you can train that way , you got to look at your nutrition . It's a really important factor .

So we've talked about sort of what soreness is . Why do we experience it ? Those are some of the ways it's communicating things to us .

I went through sort of you know , if you're this sore , if you're that sore , let's talk about now what do we do about muscle soreness , because most people come to a trainer and they're like I'm sore , how do I get rid of it , which is a natural response , especially when folks are dealing with that kind of debilitating soreness .

If you are sore at night and you can't sleep because it's sore to lay your body down , that's probably an indicator that we did too much or you're not eating well , you're not eating enough . I say well and enough and both are probably true .

And a lot of people , like people who are dieting , doing extreme diets or let's say they're dieting specifically to like participate in a bodybuilding show they actually know if they're getting into that , they know that their body is going to feel bad and feel soreness more often because they're not fueling the way that they should to support their training .

But that's the goal in that moment to get to that sort of level of leanness for the stage .

That is a different scenario , but also it is why for so many people it's probably not the right choice because you're spending , unless that is your sport of choice , your competition of choice , that sort of like bulk and cut mentality that has kind of become popular in general .

Fitness spaces online is probably not great for everybody because you're spending a lot of time training in a place where you're in a deficit , which then in turn , is making you feel like crap If you're going for longevity and a healthy lifestyle and sustainable fitness .

Finding an amount to eat that makes you feel good in your body , that allows you to train hard or train the way you want to train , and also helps you look the way you want to look , is probably ideal , rather than trying to diet and restrict yourself to the point where you actually feel bad when you're working out .

We want to feel good , we want to mitigate some of that soreness , but , getting back to that question of how do I get rid of the soreness , I say mitigate because we want to get those signals still . So it's why I would say you're not aiming to necessarily get rid of all your soreness or to not experience any of it .

A lot of people will feel sore and then they'll take NSAIDs so that they reduce the inflammation which the inflammation is something that we need as part of this process and then we don't feel the soreness , so then we can train harder next time and we create this cyclical negative stuff .

Now , I'm not a medical doctor , nor do I know your specific situation , so there may be cases where people are encouraged to take NSAIDs post exercise for something , but in general , if the purpose of it is to not feel the soreness . We probably don't want that , because we do , to a certain extent , want to feel the soreness .

Now , maybe you're near a race or a competition where you got to push through . That might be an appropriate choice , but if the muscle soreness , if we're getting rid of it entirely , then we're not going to be able to do that , then we are blocking that form of communication about how our training is going about , how our bodies are feeling .

We don't want to feel so sore all the time though that it steals from our next workout . So we want to be able to recover enough that we can train at the level we want to at that next workout . If we are constantly feeling sore and we start to diminish what we can do , workout after workout after workout .

So there are some things where we can lessen the experience but not numb ourselves . That's probably the best way of thinking about it . We're not numbing ourselves to the soreness , we're just managing it so that we can continue to train hard . Tart cherry juice is and I've said it on the podcast before .

We have research to show that eight ounces of tart cherry juice within an hour post workout will help reduce the experience of soreness . That's a good option . You're not going to feel it in an hour . The idea is that you are consuming it within an hour after your workout .

Active recovery so some movement , some light walking , some gentle yoga , that is going to help things circulate . And again , moving your body is going to be helpful to reduce those feelings of soreness . So I always tell clients if we train three days a week , I want you to take rest days . But I want you to take a walk at least on the days in between .

When you see me , you can have a whole total rest day , but a gentle walk is going to be really helpful . Massage guns and foam rollers , used post workout in a way in which you're able to breathe as you're doing it , can be helpful .

Now , why I say that is some people use a massage gun or they use the foam roller and they're like wincing and their whole body is like they have all this intensity and they're just uncomfortable . That is actually not doing the thing that we want to in this moment .

So what our goal with those post workout and as a way to reduce soreness is for activating the parasympathetic nervous system . So our relax center If it hurts so much that you can't relax , it's not doing what we need to , so some good nasal breathing , inhalation and exhalation through the nose .

Only closing your mouth while you use a foam roller or massage gun can help some people . And then , if those three things don't get rid of soreness , or at least don't make it manageable enough for you to come to your next workout and train hard , then there's something that we need to change up .

Like I said , we're either changing the program maybe we increased intensity too fast , maybe we need to change how it's structured so , like we need , you need more times , more time for these muscle groups to recover , so we're going to do different things on this other day .

However that might be , you might need to focus on sleep and nutrition , and sometimes that means cutting back a little of the workout so that you can get the other things in . Sometimes that means eating more food than you think you're comfortable with because you have some fear or attachment with , like , weight gain .

You may be surprised that you aren't going to experience that , or maybe your body needed that , or there's something in order for you to train that you have to be properly fueled .

And if you are deciding because you have autonomy if you are deciding that you want to be in an extreme diet , realize that one is going to steal from your training a little bit , so you're not going to be able to train as hard as you could .

The idea that you're going to get super strong and decrease your calories by a ton those two things aren't going to happen at the same time . And also you might feel like crap .

And if that's okay with you and that's a choice that you're making for an abbreviated point of time , that is your choice , because you have autonomy , realizing that you're going to feel like crap and that when it comes time to refuel , you're going to quickly see yourself return to maybe what you would have been before .

Again , I think it's important to note that everyone is allowed to do what they want and that all bodies are beautiful and you want to make I think you want to make choices that support your overall health , well-being , happiness . So hopefully this helps with that . So let me just run through those reminders again . Muscle soreness is not lactic acid buildup .

It's an inflammatory process as your muscles are repairing and growing . If that's the case , lifting in general is a catabolic process . It's a breaking down . Muscle soreness is usually going to come on later delayed onset muscle soreness or doms . 12 to 72 hours later , can you have a good workout and not get sore ? Yes , should you always be .

Should you never experience soreness ? Probably not . You might need to make it a little harder . Soreness is helpful if we get critical and think about it , about communicating what's happening in our body . Where is sore ? How frequently are we sore ?

How do we need to adapt what we're doing so that we have a more either well balanced soreness or acute soreness in the spot that we are hoping to have that soreness or and is our soreness getting in the way of our ability to train in the future ? So do we need to change something about the program ?

Do we need to change something about our nutrition or our hydration or our rest ? That's important information . Are we trying to get rid of soreness ? We are definitely trying to lessen it so that we can still train , so that we can live our lives , so that you're not sitting in a meeting thinking only about how sore your legs are .

But we want a little bit of that soreness to communicate when we're ready to train again , when we pushed it too far . It is something that our body is trying to tell us , so we don't want to block it out entirely .

If we're trying to lessen soreness , some things that we can do is drink tart cherry juice , use active recovery methods like gentle walking , gentle yoga things like that or nasal breathing and massage guns and foam rolling post workout , as long as it's the goal is relaxation and kicking on that parasympathetic nervous system .

And then , if none of those things are working , we're constantly sore or we're really uncomfortable . We need to change something up again , either in the program , in our nutrition or in something about our lifestyle . All right , I love this . I love how just absolutely practical this is going to be for you , because you're going to be able to apply this today .

Tomorrow , if you have questions about your particular situation or anything else around some of these topics , let me know . You can email me , betsy , at bfosterstrongcom . You can send me an Instagram DM my Instagram handle is at foster underscore strength and if you know somebody who could benefit from this , go ahead and share the episode with them .

The podcast is new , so again , I'll just remind you that I'm looking for ratings and reviews , hopefully to grow the audience and help give people some more helpful information , nuanced information , practically applicable information . All right , until next time . Go , build your strongest body , and I'll talk to you soon . Bye .